A Simple Gift
by Vitalani
Summary: *SPOILER ALERT* Set after Portal 2. GLaDOS brought Wheatley back for the sake of a lack of non-brain-damaged test subjects, but finds it's not as satisfying anymore. A simple gift reminds her that even a machine has a soul. T for language. Fluff.


AN: Edited due to errors kindly pointed out to me.

Hi! My very first Portal fic! -gushes proudly- well, I suppose it's nothing super-terrific, and it's a first attempt, but constructive criticism is always wlcome :D I'm not entirely sure how well I've managed to grasp the character personalities, I think GLaDOS might be a little OOC, but that's the point of this story. Mostly character development and something I thought might fit in the flow of the story.

Full Summary: Set four years after the end of Portal 2, GLaDOS has brought Wheatley back and shoved him back in his own body, which was in Cryo-Storage, for her own amusement. While putting him through tests is not quite as satisfying as watching the tenatious Chell, through selfless kindness on Wheatley's part she comes to realise that even a machine needs love.

~!~

_[Accessing Folder: Moron Humanising Initiative.]_

_[Accessing Subfolder: Reasons.]_

_[Accessing File: Reasons.]_

_[Displaying File: Reasons.]_

GLaDOS scowled at the monitor, though she didn't actually have to be looking at it, per se, to know what it was showing. A list of reasons she'd thought this would be a good idea. Testing the full capacity of her processors was at the top of the list. It wasn't the first reason she'd come up with, but to validate the experiment she had made sure to put it first in the list. Well, at least that part was a success. The other reasons included a myriad of different ways of essentially saying the same thing. Amusing herself and torturing the little... moron.

So far, so good with the torture bit. But the amusement had dwindled. That amusement had been closely linked to how much pleading, wailing, squirming and general unhappiness he spent at her mercy. Or lack thereof. Lately, though, he just seemed entirely resigned to it and, when forced to do test chambers, he simply maintained silence and threw sour glares at the cameras.

_'So much like her. Damnit.'_ GLaDOS thought viciously. Yes, it was just like pushing Chell around. The mute had _never_ given her the satisfaction of a reaction to any of her taunts, not even once, but now that Wheatley had been suffering this for almost a full year he seemed accustomed to it and merely trudged through the test chambers, trying to keep himself in one piece. Still, while she inwardly burned with the desire to simply eject him from the current chamber, there was a small line of protocol hardcode that prevented it.

"This is the final chamber, Moron, and then your weekly testing quota will have been completed." She told him in a dangerously smooth voice. He blinked at the camera, dark-blue eyes focused for only a few moments, then he turned and looked around the room. With all the practice at thinking with portals, he was actually getting rather good at solving the chambers. This one was a little simpler than usual, since she wanted him out of them as quickly as possible, but he maintained an even pace. Stare, fire portal, check, step through, rinse and repeat.

After an agonising wait he had placed his lanky, six-foot-seven frame in the elevator and sat on the floor while it moved him from the testing track to his living quarters. GLaDOS switched her attention elsewhere, though the cameras in his living area remained on out of sheer habit and to make sure he didn't kill himself or something. Because that would have been tragic, his death at -literally- his own hands instead of her figurative ones. A sorely missed opportunity.

After some time, when it was near evening, GLaDOS found her attention drawn to a noise from his quarters. A mechanical noise. She checked, but since there were no cameras in the sleeping area or the bathroom the source of the noise was hidden out of sight.

"Moron." She said to get his attention. He appeared in the bedroom doorway after half a minute, shoving his untamable, light-brown mop of hair out of his face. Honestly, he was even too stupid to keep perfectly straight _hair_ from getting in his way. "Not that I _really_ care what it is you get up to while I'm busy keeping this entire facility in perfect working order," she said to him, "but _what_ is that noise I keep hearing in your rooms?"

"It's nothin'." Wheatley answered. "Why d'you care anyway, love?"

"I don't."

"What's the date?" He asked suddenly, fidgeting. GLaDOS let her displeasure seep into her voice, though she answered anyway.

"It's the twenty-eighth of May, a Sunday. The year is forty-five-twenty-nine." She hissed.

"Oh, thanks." Wheatley nodded like he'd wanted that to be the answer and disappeared into his room again. Not ten minutes later he reappeared in view. "Oi, love!" He said, waving at the camera.

"What do you want?" GLaDOS grumbled.

"Just... can I have a favor?" He asked. It actually took more than a picosecond for the request to compute. "Please? Please?" Wheatley put his hands together in a praying gesture. "Jus' a little one? Please, love?"

"What is it?" She decided she'd make him do extra testing whether either of them liked it or not next week.

"The cameras between here and your chamber... will you turn them off? Just for a minute? Please?" Wheatley begged. "It's nothin' bad, I swear! You'll like it! I swear!"

"Are you _kidding_ me?" GLaDOS laughed, leaving the audio connection on for the express purpose of making sure he could hear it.

"C'mon! One minute! Exactly one minute?" He continued when she'd quieted.

"You're serious." It wasn't a question. That realisation also took a bit longer to process.

"Yeah, love, I am. Serious, that is. Just for one minute."

"I am _not_ turning off one _single_ camera in this facility. Especially if you're the one asking me to." GLaDOS answered. "Why on earth would you want me to anyway?"

"Well, it was surprise. A nice one, not something horrible. I didn't want you to peek." He sighed, his shoulders drooping.

_'Maybe even an AI like me can 'go soft' with age?'_ GLaDOS thought. Simultaneous was the unnerving feeling of blindness as, one by one, the cameras in question went blank.

"Countdown Timer Set: One Minute. Activating... Now." The flat, emotionless auto-speech droned in her own voice. It was not a function she liked at all, her own voice being _abused_ by that piece of hardcode, but being hardcode, she couldn't alter it in the least. In the same moment, the final camera in his rooms was shut off and she could see nothing.

There was a two-hundred meter stretch of hallways between his living area and her chamber. She had only the audio and video input mounted upon her actual chassis to sense her immediate surroundings with, another thing she decided that she expressly did _not_ like at all. The only warning of his approach was the sound of his Long Fall boots on the panel floors and, oddly, a sound like small sets of hydraulics and servos moving in rhythm alongside his footsteps. She watched the doors warily, curling her body up slightly like a cat hiding under cover it knew to be inadequate.

When the minute ended and the cameras abruptly came back to life, she could see neither Wheatley nor whatever it was he'd wanted to keep her from seeing. She faced the monitors, displaying all camera angles she could find in the aforementioned area. Nothing. The footsteps had stopped too. Before she could speak, however, she heard the chamberlock doors slide open and quickly looked around to see what had entered her domain.

"Just what-" As GlaDOS started to speak a humanoid robot with an egg-shaped core tottered into the room. She went silent, watching the tall, skinny thing make its' way in and look around. It had a white body with orange decals on it, a bright orange optic, and after it spent a few moments staring at her it raised one hand and offered a simple wave. Then one with blue decals entered, shorter and wider than the first bot, with a spherical core. It seemed to have a slightly more sure-footed approach to walking than its' counterpart, planting its' feet confidently, but it wasn't until the orange one got the blue's attention with a chirping sound and pointed at GLaDOS that said blue robot warbled something aloud and waved at her, acknowleging her.

"Kinda funny, really. And kinda stupid." Wheatley finally made himself visible. "When you and... and what's-her-name chucked up out there," he pointed upwards, "the schematics and all that for them somehow got jammed in _my_ memory. When you brought me back and you were going mental about that co-operative testing thing I realised what they were. Figured you wouldn't like me just saying 'hey, I wrote a program, try loading it' because, like, you might have thought I'd tried making a virus to mess you up or something." He was saying.

GLaDOS had no response. She genuinely had no response. No witty comeback, no insult, nothing.

"I remember everything from before they made me a Core." Wheatley was still talking. "You were brought online before I was made into one. Actually, I remember working on the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System Project. I was a programmer. One of their best. I was just _really_ stupid at everything that didn't have to do with coding. And, of course, all that's written in my profile, that you let me read. And I know you didn't make any of it up because you can't. Alter employee profiles, that is. And these guys are here so that's proof of it. I built 'em from scratch for you, love."

GLaDOS' view switched from the two bots, who were standing near one another and looking around the room, to examine the tall, slightly-skinny human.

"I hope you don't think this gets you out of testing." She said, a little too fast. And where was the venom in her voice? Quick diagnostic -no, all emotive processes were working fine.

"No, I know it doesn't." Wheatley shrugged, turning to leave. GLaDOS stared in awe at the two bots for another moment before, abruptly, voicing another question.

"What did you work on?"

"Eh?" He stopped, leg comically still raised in the act of taking a step forwards.

"What did you work on? On the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System Project?" GLaDOS asked. Wheatley tipped his head to the side for a moment in thought.

"The, um, the Emergency Personality Backup Protocols. You know, the bit that makes you able to survive in perfect condition on a bit more than a single volt. Like... a potato battery for example." He faced her properly. "How else d'you think I knew exactly which bits of you to stuff in that thing so that you wouldn't be all screwed up? That wasn't any of _your_ leftover brains in the system. I actually did that by myself. And I'm still sorry about it, love. Really."

The unpleasent reminder -especially shoved in her face so brutally- made GLaDOS glare at him. Wheatley didn't seem to react, though, he only turned back to the doors, leaving her alone with the two robots.

~!~

AN: Well? :D how'd you like it? :D Reviews and constructive criticism always appreciated, and I'll be using flames to toast marshmallows! :D -poke!- R&R! :D


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